Near Field Communication (NFC) is a wireless technology allowing two devices to communicate over a short distance of approximately 10 cm or less. NFC is standardized internationally within NFC Forum specifications and defined in ISO/IEC 18092, ECMA-340, and ISO 14443, for example. NFC allows a mobile handset to interact with a subscriber's immediate environment. With close-range contactless technology, mobile handsets may be used as credit cards, to access public transportation, to access secured locations, and many more applications.
A chip in the handset may perform the wireless near field communication to an adjacent reader, smart card, or other handset. The display, keyboard, and the mobile network capability of the handset enable the implementation of a wide range of powerful applications. To protect the consumer, these applications must be securely deployed and managed regardless of where the subscriber is and the time of day. The UICC (universal integrated circuit card), also referred to as USIM (universal subscriber identity module), is a secure environment for deploying these applications. An embedded secure environment chip may also be provided by some handsets.
A subscriber identity module (SIM) is an integrated circuit that securely stores its unique serial number (ICCID), an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) and the related key used to identify and authenticate subscriber on mobile telephony devices such as mobile phones and computers. A SIM also contains temporary information related to the local network, a list of the services to which the user has access, and passwords.
USIM (Universal Subscriber Identity Module) is an application for UMTS mobile telephony running on a UICC smart card which is inserted in a 3G mobile phone. There is a common misconception to call the UICC itself a USIM, but the USIM is merely a logical entity on the physical card. It stores user subscriber information, authentication information and provides storage space for text messages and phone book contacts. The phone book on a UICC has been greatly enhanced. For authentication purposes, the USIM stores a long-term pre-shared secret key, which is shared with the Authentication Center (AuC) in the network. The USIM also verifies a sequence number that must be within a range using a window mechanism to avoid replay attacks, and is in charge of generating the session keys to be used in the confidentiality and integrity algorithms of the KASUMI block cipher in UMTS. The equivalent of USIM on CDMA networks is CSIM.
The capabilities of a UICC have been skyrocketing in the last few years, with fast processors and multi-megabyte capacities squeezed into the diminutive package. A UICC card is typically connected to a host processing module on a handset using an ISO 7816 (Industry Standards Organization) protocol; while a UICC may also include a fast, universal serial bus (USB) interface. The adoption of USB leaves one pin free on the UICC package, and it is over this single wire that the USIM can communicate with NFC hardware on the handset. Alternatively, other pins may be used, such as “programming voltage VPP” pin C6 that is available regardless of USB use. The Single Wire Protocol (SWP) for this purpose has been approved as a standard by the European Technical Standards Institute (ETSI) as TS 301 631.
Various systems may also include an embedded security element that includes a processor and memory. The embedded security element may include a secure operating system that allows the execution of various applications within the security element. Currently, vendors such as Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient provide secure operating systems for use on embedded security elements.
Multiple NFC applications may be enabled, configured or uploaded at the same time on a mobile handset, such as one or more credit card emulations, one or more transportation tokens/tickets, one or more access badges or keys to restricted locations, etc.
Other features of the present embodiments will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description that follows.